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1 TYCHE in PLUTARCH's AEMILIUS PAULUS-TIMOLEON W.J. Tatum

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1 TYCHE in PLUTARCH's AEMILIUS PAULUS-TIMOLEON W.J. Tatum TYCHE IN PLUTARCH’S AEMILIUS PAULUS-TIMOLEON W.J. Tatum Department of Classics Victoria University of Wellington The Aemilius Paulus-Timoleon is unexcelled in its exhibition of Plutarchan artistry. The work commences with a formal and programmatic prologue that has, naturally enough, attracted much exposition, and the detailed (and obvious) thematic integration of the twinned biographies showcases their author’s fondness for parallelism and synkrisis, his fundamental methodologies for the representation of character. And, for each biography in this pairing, its hero can only be described as virtuous in the best Greco-Roman sense of the term: each is an incorruptible and victorious warrior whose virtue is abetted by providence, and each wages war against opponents who, though mighty, deserve to fail because they are immoral. Not all so different from Avatar, really, and, as I hope to show, Plutarch is no less keen than James Cameron to exploit his obvious predecessors. The two biographies correspond almost perfectly in their length, advertise their most obvious connexions, and conclude with a brief comparison the verdict of which (for once) seems clear (for all his outstanding merits, so this synkrisis concludes, Timoleon’s ethos did not have megethos: synk. 2.12). In short, then, the Aemilius-Timoleon is a pairing that elegantly incorporates all the major features of Plutarch biography.1 1 The formal prologue: Aem. 1.1-4: see T. Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford 1999), 30ff. Plutarchan methods: e.g. C. Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London 2002), with extensive references to important previous scholarship. The Aem.-Tim.: J. Geiger, ‘Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: the Choice of Heroes’, in B. Scardigli (ed.), Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (Oxford 1995), 184ff .; S. Swain, ‘Plutarch: Chance, Providence, History’, AJP 110 (1989), 272-302; ‘De Fortuna Deorum’, CQ 39 (1989), 504-16; ‘Plutarch’s Aemilius and Timoleon’, Historia 38 (1989), 314-34; Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World AD 50-250 BC (Oxford 1996), 151ff.; P. Desideri, ‘Teoria e prassi storiographica di Plutarco: una proposta di lettura della coppia Emilio Paolo-Timoleonte’, Maia 3 (1989), 199-215; R. Scuderi, ‘Perseo, ultimo soverano di Macedonia, nella biografia plutarchei de Emilio Paulo’, Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 40- 41 (2004-2005), 55-64. ASCS 31 [2010] Proceedings: classics.uwa.edu.au/ascs31 1 The most important – and extensive – discussions of this are found in a series of publications by Simon Swain that has set our understanding of it on a new level, both in terms of its literary construction and its moralizing and cultural implications. A central focus of Swain’s examination is Plutarch’s conceptualization and deployment of tyche. Now it can hardly be necessary to rehearse the extensive versatility in meaning exhibited by this commonplace word, the sense of which varies enormously. It denominates any of several versions of an ancient goddess (e.g. Hes. Theog. 360; Hom. Hymn Dem. 420; Pind. Ol. 12.1-2) as well as the object of Hellenistic and Imperial cult. It also denotes the merest chance or coincidence. And it invokes varying types of providential forces, good or ill in temper, particular or historical in scope. The word is often used inconsistently even by a single writer, and all too often the word is so vague that it resists specific definition.2 Which of course makes it a perfect target for any serious critic. Swain has carefully demonstrated that Plutarch’s use of tyche can be divided into three categories, each tethered to specific generic situations. In his serious philosophical essays, Plutarch eschews every ambiguity of which tyche is susceptible: there the word is applied only to events that are purely accidental. The universe of the Lives, by contrast, differs. There Plutarch’s usage is much less precise: in addiion to referring to mere chance, tyche also often overlaps with theos and daimon and so indicates a guiding force much like providence. The final pattern of Plutarchan usage, and the least relevant to the purposes of this paper, is found in his purely rhetorical pieces. In his De Fortuna Romanorum, to cite the most obvious case, Plutarch exhibits tyche not merely in her providential guise but here (and only here in Plutarch) as a full-blown goddess, though 2 Tyche: G. Herzog-Hauser, RE 7A 2 (1943), 1643-89, where much of the evidence is assembled; M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Munich 1961), 200-18; LSJ s.v. ; I. Karanto, ‘Fortuna’, ANRW 2.17.1 (Stuttgart 1981), 525-31. Fourth century and Hellenistic religion: J. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion (Chapel Hill 1983), 59-62; P. Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkely and Los Angeles 1990), 400-401; R. Parker, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford 1996), 231-32. Imperial cult: Karanto, op. cit. Hellenistic historiography: F.W. Walbank, Selected Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge 1985), 83-84. The specific and important case of Polybius is taken up below. 2 one of the rhetorical and not the theological variety. It is obvious from Swain’s important analysis that, although it can happen in Greek literature that tyche is used by an author without discrimination, Plutarch himself tends to display a significant degree of self- consciousness whenever he introduces the term. It is a word to be watched, then, not least in the Aemilius-Timoleon, where it is a central theme. Which is why Swain is right to approach this pairing by way of its deployment of tyche. Now it is Swain’s contention that tyche operates differently in the two biographies. The Timoleon is dominated by providential tyche. This is itself an unusual feature, since Plutarch tends to restrict the operation of providence (in the Parallel Lives) to the rise of Rome or the collapse of the republic in favour of imperial monarchy. Timoleon is an exception, however, because, as Swain is right to observe, his career resulted in a Greek victory not over other Greeks but over tyrants and barbarians, all in the cause of freedom. Thus it was utterly unsullied by the infighting that was anathema to the imperial Greek ideal – and certainly to Plutarch’s ideal – of proper Hellenism. The providential nature of tyche in this Greek life, it is urged, contrasts sharply with the role of tyche in its Roman parallel. There tyche’s appearances are rarely signifiers of divine or fateful impulses. Instead, the tyche that buffets Aemilius is personal and capricious.3 The literary purpose of this striking variation in the register of tyche, Swain concludes, is to underscore the point that Timoleon’s mission was favoured by the divine order, and that its historical realization approximated the miraculous. Aemilius’ victory in the Third Macedonian War, on the other hand, lacked any comparable historical heft. In the biographer’s assessment, according to Swain, ‘the events in which Aemilius was involved were not after all stupendous’. In a related discussion of the same matter, Swain goes so far as to claim that, in Plutarch’s view, ‘Aemilius’ campaign did not produce really great changes in the world’. Hence Plutarch’s concentration, in the Aemilius, on a 3 Tyche and Rome in Plutarch: Origins of Rome (e.g. Rom. 8.9; Cam. 6.3); Roman expansion (e.g. Phil. 17.2; Flam. 12.10); imperial monarchy (e.g. Phoc. 3.4; Pomp. 53.8- 9); political harmony in Rome (e.g. Flam. 12; Pomp. 75.5). See Swain, Historia 38 (1989), 314-16; Hellenism and Empire, 151ff. (with further references). The exception of Timoleon: Swain, Historia, 333-34; Hellenism and Empire, 154-55. 3 purely individual register for tyche, while its providential version is reserved for the Timoleon.4 This conclusion about Plutarch’s assessment of the historical significance of Aemilius Paulus’ success at Pydna seems far from inevitable, however, and perhaps a bit unexpected. After all, Aemilius’ victory in the Third Macedonian War was not simply an enduring hallmark of Rome’s eastern advance, as Polybius had recognized early on (more on that presently), it was, for subsequent generations of Romans, a strong token of divine favour, much like the victory at Lake Regillus.5 It is true, of course, that Plutarch’s central purpose in this as in all his pairings is not so much to make historical as ethical assessments, and he tells us explicitly that it is his intention in the Aemilius-Timoleon to explore the relationship between intelligence (phronesis) and tyche in the lives of each subject: œν ν τ“ αρÒντι ροκεχειρ€σµεθã σοι Just such examples have I selected for you τÚν Τιµολ°οντος τοË Κορινθ€ου κα‹ τÚν in this present work: the life of Timoleon Αfiµιλ€ου ΠαÊλου β€ον, éνδρ«ν οÈ µÒνον of Corinth and the life of Aemilius Paullus. τα›ς αflρ°σεσιν, éλλå κα‹ τα›ς τÊχαις These men were alike not only in the éγαθα›ς ıµο€ως κεχρηµ°νων ‹ τå excellence of their moral principles but also ρãγµατα, κα‹ διαµφισβÆτησιν in the good fortune each enjoyed when it αρεξÒντων Òτερον εÈοτµ€& µçλλον came to actual events, and they will make it φρονÆσει τå µ°γιστα τ«ν hard to determine whether it was owing to εραγµ°νων κατ≈ρθωσαν. their good luck or to their intelligence that they accomplished the greatest of their achievements (Aem. 1.6). 4 Quotations drawn from Swain, Historia 38 (1989), 334 and AJP 110 (1989), 275. 5 Aemilius’ reputation: for the literary record, see, in general, W. Rieter, Aemilius Paullus: Conqueror of Greece (London 1988). Divine favour: Cic. Nat.
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